


Make Peace with Your Maker

by Captain_Panda



Series: Growing Pains [8]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Anxiety, Canon Divergence - Post-Iron Man 3, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Hurt Steve Rogers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Tony Stark, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Whump, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:13:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28483686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captain_Panda/pseuds/Captain_Panda
Summary: A year too early, Steve gets a lead on the Winter Soldier. Tony finds the wreckage.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: Growing Pains [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1707091
Comments: 11
Kudos: 67





	Make Peace with Your Maker

**Author's Note:**

> I actually wrote this fic months ago. It capped off around 10,000 words. And then I lost the fic in its entirety.
> 
> Here we are, many months later, with the concept reborn. No, I didn't find it--I rewrote it. This isn't the happy-go-lucky fare you're used to--but I've been looking forward to this installment for some time.
> 
> Next installment will be happier-go-luckier. <3 Until then, enjoy, and Happy New Year!
> 
> Yours affectionately,  
> Captain Panda

Tony did not believe in God. But in certain moments, he longed for that security.

That cosmic assurance. That “we are more than ants swept up in an inexorable wave” feeling.

It was hard not to reach for some assurance when confronted with such a hard reality.

Steve Rogers was famously difficult to break. Not merely of spirit, although Tony knew from personal experience how abrasive and exasperating Steve could be—he was built like a war machine, every bone endowed, every muscle enhanced. He did not fall so far from grace as to land in a hospital bed. It was not merely difficult to imagine; it was unspeakable.

Tony lingered in the hospital threshold, the halfway-between space, trying to understand how it had come to this.

He had known that Steve was going after the Winter Soldier. Rumor had it the Winter Soldier was one of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s most prized targets, a Russian-based operative responsible for more-than-the-average number of high-profile deaths. Putting him out of commission would be the kind of takedown S.H.I.E.L.D. would speak of for years to come. The kind of mission befitting Captain America’s rank and prestige.

Captain America was very nearly a god among men. He was not bred for mortal foes; he was meant to put down enemies that no other human dared go near.

 _This is one you should not have gone near_ , Tony thought, stepping into the room. The windows were shuttered; the noisy hospital machines seemed to consume Tony’s entire existence for a moment. _Help us_ , he begged some unspoken power, rendered impotent in the face of his circumstances. _Someone. Anyone_.

He stepped up to the still figure in the bed. 

Steve hadn’t woken up, according to the nice young man who had been given the impossible task of keeping Captain America alive. It was perhaps a great relief, given the profound burden Steve was carrying. Tony could barely hear the doctor over the white noise in his own head.

What God could ever let it come to this? he thought, reaching out into the cold, dark abyss and closing his own cold fingers over Steve’s limp hand. Steve’s skin was surprisingly warm to the touch, despite the trauma underneath it. There were bruises spattered on his face like blast waves. 

A bitter, wretched feeling bubbled unexpectedly in Tony’s chest. He swallowed hard against it.

“I need you,” he whispered. His voice was drowned by the room. The machines. He’d always been fascinated by machines and automation. Ever since he was a boy, the repetition of the tasks had satisfied him. He liked watching robots draw more than he enjoyed humans playing instruments. He liked the predictable melody of machines performing their assigned tasks. Human gods—mechanical servants. All so pleasantly orderly.

Tears fogged his vision. Again, he swallowed them back, gripping Steve’s hand for support. He would not cry. There was no need to cry. Steve was alive and going to be well, as soon as the serum caught up with the Winter Soldier. Steve won every fight he’d ever been in. To hear him tell it, and to look at the old pictures of skinny Steve Rogers, there had to be thin margins on many of them.

This was no different, Tony reminded himself, rubbing his trembling mouth with his free hand. This was no different at all.

“Need you,” he warbled. He meant the words to be stronger. _World needs you. Get back up. Come on, Steve._

It was heart-wrenching to be so close to his goal and so far. To hold Steve’s hand in his own, and know he wasn’t going to wake.

A silent sob skipped out of him. He swallowed all the rest, berating himself for letting even one slip as he slipped into the chair. How thoughtfully placed, amid the chaos of strings and wires and threadbare blankets. 

He wondered if Steve was cold. Steve was always so warm to the touch, but no one with a passing awareness of Captain America remained ignorant of his sixty-seven years on ice. There were days when Tony could still taste sand and camel water. He wondered if Steve was cold, in his unconsciousness.

Unthinkingly, he removed his own jacket, one-handed, releasing Steve’s hand only long enough to free it. He draped the body-warm leather over Steve’s chest, hiding the gown and threadbare blanket underneath it. It felt fitting. Kind. Self-soothing. Steve might not feel it, but Tony did, and it felt good to him. 

_Why are we superstitious?_ he wondered, reclaiming Steve’s hand and cradling it in both of his own. _Why are we obsessed with making things right? What do we gain from it?_

He lifted Steve’s limp hand towards his face, told it, “I came for you.” He’d been halfway across the country when he’d gotten the call from Nick. 

A call from Nick had been the last thing he’d wanted, preparing to enter his own kind of hellish weekend. He’d had so many meetings stacked up against each other than a six-hour slot from nine p.m. to three a.m. had been completely checked in. He’d looked forward to complaining about it to Steve afterward before passing out on a hotel room couch, too tired to crawl into a perfectly made bed.

His life was greatly rewarding, lavish beyond description, comfortable beyond complaint. Yet there was a drudgery to it that was hard to grasp. There was a real sense of entombment, in those long meetings, whereby he would leave the room without getting out of his chair and watch as the Tony Stark puppet played his part, all so his father’s company could keep running. Pepper did a beautiful job as the acting C.E.O., but shareholders demanded that Tony make at least an occasional appearance, and Pepper deserved a break, too.

He’d almost hung up on Nick. “Five seconds,” he’d announced, counting down: “Four, three—”

“Cap’s down,” Nick had answered.

A shiver walked down Tony’s spine.

He dragged his clumsy, clunky hospital room chair closer to Steve’s bedside, desperate to be near him.

There were so many reasons behind the grim panoply in front of him. (The bunker had been rigged. The Winter Soldier had brought knives, guns, and a metal fist to a shield fight. Steve had gone in alone, when he should have brought _backup_.) None of them mattered. All that mattered was the carcass they had left behind.

Still breathing, Tony reminded himself, squeezing Steve’s hand so his own hands would not quake. Steve was still alive. It didn’t matter that his face was beaten in, black and blue from left temple to left mandible. It didn’t matter that a short row of black stitches knit his right cheek together, sticking out a little, like Frankensteinian thread. It didn’t matter that the gown hid the rest. Steve was alive.

Shakily, Tony brought Steve’s hand towards his own mouth, breath warm. His own vitals had to be terrible, his frantic heart thumping along to the incongruously tame tenor of Steve’s heart rate.

“I need you, Cap,” he whispered, pressing his lips desperately against unflinching skin. He needed Steve to apologize—for getting on his own plane, for not realizing it was a trap, for not retreating, if he still could. He needed Steve _to apologize_ : he would not offer his weeping to a ghost. If Steve did not awake, then Tony could not tell him he was sorry: sorry for leaving, sorry for failing, sorry for something, anything.

_Haven’t you suffered enough?_

An uptick in the heart rate monitor went unnoticed, but the fractional way Steve’s brow furrowed did not. Tony sucked in a shallow breath and held it as, millimeter by fragile millimeter, Steve awoke. Even as they flickered open, blue eyes were visibly foggy. Tony wondered how many painkillers were put in the IVs to keep the elephant down. Steve frowned deeply, like it wasn’t enough to keep him out of pain, mouth opening the slightest bit to vocalize it.

Tony—couldn’t, do this. “Steve?”

Whatever sound Steve intended to make was extinguished. Slowly, he tilted his head to look at Tony. Scrutinizing eyes slid briefly wide, then slid low again, lazy, half-open. “Ton-ee,” he murmured, struggling to keep sinking eyelids open. “Ton-ee,” he repeated, the word cracking on his tongue.

Still clasping Steve’s hand, Tony leaned up and kissed an unbruised corner of his brow. Steve tensed, then relaxed with a sigh. “Missed ‘ou,” he whispered, reaching up with his free hand to cup Tony’s cheek. Tony let him, big, warm paw of a hand so comforting it made him want to collapse and cry.

As Tony looked at Steve, words visibly clamored to surface from Steve’s foggy thoughts. “You—why’re ‘ou…?”

“You thought I wouldn’t come?” Tony asked, voice light, almost teasing. He leaned over, bracing his forehead against Steve’s. “Thought I’d miss you?”

Steve hummed, eyes shut, hand braced against Tony’s cheek. Despite appearances, he was warm, solid, alive, and _real_. Tony felt something settle inside him as he breathed with Steve. Then, slowly, he felt the hand slipping from his cheek, settling on the bed. 

Steve forced his eyes open, already straining to lift his arm again. “Shh,” Tony assured, backing off with a final squeeze to the hand in his hold. “Close your eyes.”

Steve obeyed—squeezing Tony’s hand limply, almost defiantly. _I’m still here_. “Go to sleep, big guy,” Tony insisted. He didn’t care if his shareholders walked out. He wouldn’t be anywhere but here.

Steve murmured, “Ton-ee,” the black line of stitches flexing with the effort of forming words. “Ton-ee.”

Tony could not help but stare at the living corpse in front of him. Steve’s face paled suddenly, noticeably; his hand trembled as he planted it firmly on the bed, leveraged himself upright, ignoring Tony’s silent outstretched hands, _lie down, lie down, you’re broken, don’t you see?_ He scrunched up his face in genuine agony and vomited blood onto the floor.

Repulsion kicked in and Tony lunged to his feet, prepared to flee, to let someone else handle it. He had no idea how anyone could ever summon an ounce of caretaking when confronted with such a base, repulsive action.

Then he remembered, _It’s Steve_ , and pulled himself together.

There was a call button—Tony pressed that, several times. There wasn’t a spare piece of linen, so he snagged a paper towel, offering it to Steve. Steve’s breath rasped through his teeth; it sounded painful, notwithstanding his ghostly pallor. Steve pressed the towel to his mouth, then pulled it back, expression furrowed in a permanent grimace.

Reinforcements arrived. Tony sent up a silent prayer of gratitude.

* * *

Steve threw up on and off for an hour. Tony hated it. Maybe not as much as Steve—maybe more. Hard to say, really.

At some point, the super-soldier reached out to him, clammy hand no longer a comfort. Tony let him hold onto his sleeve-covered wrist and told himself he was not a coward for it. Steve was supposed to be invincible. The profoundly unsettling thought that he was not haunted Tony. 

It gutted him almost as much as the noise, the choked-back breaths. Steve was clearly in a lot of pain, and not doing his usual, admirable job of hiding it.

As local dusk descended into true darkness—Tony had long since forgotten how many hours had passed since he had last sought reprieve—Tony made a decision.

“Let’s go home,” he propositioned. Home had more than one definition—Steve’s studio apartment, Tony’s beacon-of-clean-energy—but both were out of the question from Washington, D.C. That didn’t matter: Tony had other residences. Friends in many places, if nothing else.

Seeing Steve in such dire straits ungrounded him, damaged Tony’s sense of surety with the world. There was no one to protect them, no conspiracy of fate meant to keep them alive. At any random, unhappy moment, all the tentative happiness they had found could be taken away. 

Tony could not waste another second of it in a hospital room.

Still holding a bloodied napkin to his bleeding mouth, Steve looked at him with hope in his weary eyes. That decided it.

* * *

No one wanted to let Steve go. On one level, Tony understood: Steve was America’s sweetheart, and anyone assigned to his care seemed to develop an irrational sense of pride in keeping him alive. On another level, Tony was too tired to care about others’ feelings: all he wanted to do was leave, without being subjected to dire disclaimers about what could happen to his beloved if he forgot to feed and water him.

He knew how to take care of things, he didn’t snap at them.

As Steve Rogers stood on his own two feet, Tony felt some of his tentative control fracture. It wasn’t the man, the myth, the legend he expected: it was a hollowed-out version who had barely escaped alive, standing steady but coltish, a tremble visible in him. The nurse assisting him was nearly a head taller, yet he looked at Steve with real pride as he said, “You’re a wonder, Cap.”

He was—and he was _Tony’s_ wonder. No one had the right to take Steve away from him, Tony thought, fiercely protective. 

With little warning, Steve rested an overpoweringly heavy hand on Tony’s shoulder, like a titan, barely keeping his feet.

Yet he walked. It was unclear who it was for, exactly—the doctors and nurses, reluctant as they were to discharge him but according to his will; or the guards, who followed them, mystified by his impossibly swift recovery; or Tony, himself—but Steve Rogers walked out of the hospital under his own power.

 _If he dies, it’s on your watch_ , an insidious voice whispered.

* * *

The miracle didn’t last long.

His driver was in Malibu, anxiously—nay, furiously—attempting to locate him. Tony had flown, literally flown, to D.C., abandoning his original flight mid-course. He’d let the jet complete its course, cryptically informing Pepper that an emergency had come up and he owed her a very big apology bouquet. He hadn’t given her his location, and it wasn’t long before Happy had started pinging his phone, beside himself at the separation.

Tony wouldn’t have minded having his own personal driver around, but at least Rhodey was available on short notice. 

“It’s three in the morning,” Rhodey informed Tony dryly, holding the door open for Steve, who paused for a beleaguered moment to examine the logistical difficulty of ducking into a car before steeling himself against the pain of it and doing it anyway. Rhodey didn’t look happy in his military blues, but he was more alert than Tony could ever hope to be if roused at such a crushingly early hour. “You two—”

“Later,” Tony said, as Steve folded partway onto his side, leaning into a fully-loaded duffel bag. “Later,” Tony repeated, very nearly babbling as Rhodey shut the door for him.

* * *

“God,” Rhodey said, the bad kind of wonder in his tone as Tony revealed the mess of bruises across Steve’s chest. “Who did this?”

Tony had seen the marks in the grim hospital room, but the soft lighting of Rhodey’s apartment made it seem profoundly real. Badly real.

His hands started shaking. He knew who had hurt Steve— _he’s called the Winter Soldier_ —but his mind supplied a different answer: _Raza_.

Raza had men beat to death. Occasionally, he threw the lifeless victims in the cell for Yinsen to medically examine, confirming what was already painfully obvious. Once or twice, the dead had come to life—but only briefly, respiring and expiring in the same breath. There were many little things about the cave that haunted Tony, but the sight of Raza’s handiwork had him staggering, nearly falling, over a coffee table.

Rhodey abandoned the dead to steady him, both hands on his arms. _Get it off the couch_ , Tony thought, hideously afraid, superstitious in a way he had never been, before Afghanistan. _Get it out of our home. Burn it if you have to_.

Burning flesh made him gag, but he dreaded reanimation, dreaded the guilt of seeing the dying.

“Tony,” Rhodey said, not for the first time. “Tony.”

That was his name. The dead body had a name, too. He breathed very fast, very suddenly, hyperventilating like it would prove he was alive, and Rhodey crushed him against his own chest, warm and steady and _alive_.

“S’okay,” Rhodey said, one arm locked around him, the other balancing an object. “Just hold onto me, you’re all right.”

Tony did, lacing his fingers tightly into the cotton of Rhodey’s uniform. He breathed jaggedly, head spinning, mouth full of sand. Gritty, dry, heavy. Awful stuff.

It took far too long to shake the specter of death. Rhodey let him pull away but steered him into the kitchen. Sat him down at the table. Put a drink in front of him—and Tony wasn’t sure what it was, alcohol or water, until he took a gulp and grimaced. “Drink that,” Rhodey ordered.

Tony didn’t want to, his stomach twisted into a knot, but he obeyed, sipping at the fizzy Ginger Ale and slowly coming back online.

Rhodey wasn’t there anymore, but Rhodey’s kitchen was. The newly renovated quartzite countertop really was beautiful—Tony had always been fond of heavy stone, and it matched well with the preexisting cabinetry, the hardwood floors. Rhodey’s space was as immaculate as Tony’s would never be, everything filed away, only a single dish drying on a rack, awaiting retrieval. The only sign of mess was the stack of folders piled on the table, ready to be examined.

He was about to open one, snooping in an area no civilian had business doing, when he heard a low moan from the next room. Two sides of him warred, one half screaming at him to get away—the dead were _diseased_ and the dying were dangerous—while another half urged him to go, to help.

He went. He helped.

* * *

Sometime around sunrise, Steve finally rested.

The peace that ensued was fragile and unspoken, but it was peace, an end to a night-long battle against his own torn-up body. He was a dying man, released only under Tony’s authority— _what God are you, to steal him away from the living?_ —and entrusted to his care. He had to keep Steve alive. Under nearly every circumstance, Steve was easy to keep alive, resiliently, irrepressibly alive.

His mangled body—very nearly gutted by the Winter Soldier, with over thirty stab wounds, four gunshot wounds, and one wretched concussion—was a testament to a struggle Tony could hardly conceive. He hadn’t thought there was a person alive that could even bruise Captain America, bear-handed. Whatever tools were in the Winter Soldier’s kit were clearly superior to the shield Steve had brought to the fight.

Steve had deeply, nearly fatally underestimated his opponent. It hurt Tony to look at him—the Winter Soldier’s trophy kill. That he’d made it home was clearly intentional. He was alive as a warning, a mockery.

 _I could have lost you_ , Tony thought, deadened to his own fatigue as he stood in the doorway again, looking into Rhodey’s well-appointed guest room. He could still hear the hospital machines. _You would be dead, if they didn’t deign it_.

They’d made him as comfortable as they could, but he still looked in pain, his features tensed, his body suspended in a state of desperate readiness.

Rhodey told him, “I’ll take watch,” and Tony didn’t so much as nod in thanks as he walked away, shucking off his leather jacket and collapsing onto Rhodey’s couch.

* * *

He awoke to a different world. A better world.

Cold and creaky though he was, he bolted upright at the sound of voices, low and conversational and coming from the kitchen. He had to blink twice to ensure he was not hallucinating Steve at the table, upright, tense, but profoundly himself, clinging to a coffee mug. His gauntness drew Tony to his feet, wondering dizzily how many days, weeks, months had passed.

“Tony,” Steve said, the word clearer, soft with sympathy, his cheek yellow instead of dark blue, the thread slowly beginning to unfurl. “How’re you?”

Tony staggered into him, wrapping his arms around Steve’s shoulders with a gratitude far too close to tears. “Hey,” Steve crooned, his body tense in Tony’s hold, hurting in ways he was not saying. Tony could not let go. Tony could not speak. “Tony,” he repeated, soft and heavy and weary, all at once. “’m okay.”

Tony shook his head, unable to form words as sudden, irrational anger burned inside him. “You are so goddamned lucky to be alive,” he managed, releasing him, backing away, wanting to wash himself free of the stain of death. Death lingered. “I’m gonna take a shower,” he announced, for Rhodey’s benefit. Rhodey was making eggs, for himself. Steve didn’t even have a plate. Steve looked gaunter than he—“What time is it?”

“Go take a shower,” Rhodey replied.

* * *

He couldn’t scrub the dead off his skin. _That will be you one day, Stark_ , Raza seemed to laugh. _Dead and disintegrating_.

With a full body shudder, he shut off the shower.

“I’m all right,” Steve was insisting, in a quiet but confident tone, to Rhodey, who seemed to be playing the role of skeptic quite nicely.

“Mm-hm,” Rhodey replied.

They were still seated at the table. Tony lingered around the corner, listening.

“Erskine made me tough,” he went on. “I know it looks bad.” He sounded apologetic. It twisted like knives on a chalkboard to Tony. “Just—overtaxed,” he said, like describing the weather: _overcast_.

“Mm-hm,” Rhodey repeated.

“You know, they made a mistake,” Steve said somberly. “They let me go. Shoulda put me six feet under while they had the chance.”

Tony rounded the corner, heart beating so fast his vision blurred. “You _fucking_ —” He drew in a breath. He didn’t have the breath to shout at him, couldn’t win a fistfight if he wanted to against a super-soldier, and he had no doubt Steve could overpower him, weakened or not. “You’re so fucking stupid,” he managed. “You think you _won_?”

Steve nodded once, very clearly. Tony very nearly threw his coffee in his face. He stared Steve down, but Steve didn’t blink and Tony cursed as he prowled away, pacing the length of the kitchen. Rhodey simply sat there, watching.

“I think you’re an idiot,” Rhodey told Steve helpfully.

Tony snapped, “You don’t _get it_ , do you?”

Steve watched him placidly. He wasn’t listening. Oh, he was hearing Tony out, but he wasn’t _listening_. And people called _Tony_ stubborn, he thought, disgusted, hands shaking. “You really think you’ll keep coming back,” he went on, gripping the counter to still his hands. “You think—”

“I didn’t ask you to come,” Steve interjected, quiet but not kind.

“Don’t you _fucking_ turn this on me!” Tony shouted.

“I didn’t ask for you, Tony,” Steve repeated, cold as he ever got. He was tired and hungry and hurting, and in some other universe, where Tony could be anything other than human, he would’ve been Rhodey, calm and unimpressed by the outburst. “You came. You can’t—”

“Like hell I can’t,” Tony growled, stepping forward, flinching when Steve suddenly stood, inhumanly fast. Even Rhodey seemed briefly surprised, coffee pausing midway to his mouth before he lifted it and sipped at it, anyway. “Like hell _you_ will,” he insisted, rebounding, crossing the distance and jabbing a finger at Steve’s sternum. Steve caught his hand bruisingly hard, warning him. _You don’t wanna start this fight._

 _Like hell I don’t_.

“Let me go or I will fucking—”

Steve let him go, sparing him words he’d have to retract. He drew in a deep breath; it did nothing to calm him. He could feel the agitation between them, Steve’s utter refusal to back down clashing against his own terror, fury. There was no winning.

“You go out there, you’ll die,” Tony sneered.

Steve looked at him steadily. “Just because _you_ didn’t grow up in a war,” he said, a rare bitterness creeping into his tone. His gaze flickered briefly, almost disdainfully from Tony to Rhodey, nodding once in acknowledgement. “You can’t understand, Tony, if you don’t—”

Tony fisted his shirt. Steve let him—he had to, it was the only way it _happened_ —and shook him once, hard. He released him without unleashing the words inside him, the ammo in Steve’s gun, the apology for his actions. His father was like that, always explosively angry but never so angry to leave marks.

“All right. Mr. Perfect,” he whispered. If he whispered, he wouldn’t shout. “Go. Go out there, and kill some bad guys.”

Steve looked between Tony and Rhodey again, like he was waiting for the second hit to land. Rhodey said nothing. Steve looked at Tony, then, unexpectedly, said, “I don’t want you to regret this, Tony,” and walked away.

* * *

Happy was almost as pissed as he was when he arrived. “Where the hell have you been?” Happy demanded.

“Getting pissed,” Tony deadpanned, completely sober and adjusting his watch for the hundredth time in the past hour alone. “Where’s my fucking board?”

Happy pushed back—“Could’ve been killed, thought you were kidnapped”—and Tony ignored him so he wouldn’t fire him. He dragged the board out of bed, wasted their time for three hours, and signed their eight-hundred-million-dollar investment with hardly a sneer of wasted effort. It was only after, when Pepper demanded his answer, that he realized how goddamn stupid he was, hemorrhaging that much cash.

It was less than a single Iron Man suit. It was still more than he handed out on a whim, even if the reasons were surely sleazy enough to impress his politically errant youth. _The world should burn a little more_ , he’d once said, seventeen and stupid as hell. _Fire is cleansing_.

No retractions, he thought bitterly.

* * *

A letter. A goddamn letter.

_Tony,_

_We should talk._

_Steve_

There was so much blank space Tony penned his furious reply right beneath Steve’s:

 _Get fucked_.

Then he shredded the letter and tried to put Steve from his mind completely.

* * *

In a depressingly short period of time— _days_ ; not months, not years, but mere _days_ —Tony started to miss the bastard.

They’d gotten under each other’s skin before, but the anger was always warm. This felt cold—the separation, the _unknowing_ , the terrible wonder if he would finally reach out and find an empty tin can waiting for him and an empty consolation that the soldier had died doing what he loved. He stayed up at night, wondering when the last day to reconcile would be, if he hadn’t missed his window of opportunity. Stubbornly, he refused to bridge the line. If Steve cared, Steve could _walk_. Tony wouldn’t budge.

 _You are a fool, Tony Stark_ , Yinsen had once told him, referring to one of his minor idiosyncrasies, dousing a fire or eating a week’s worth of rations in a single meal, refusing to let him live for even a moment at peace with his own decisions. _You keep it up, you will die here_.

Yinsen was the voice in his head when all the others shut up, stopped goading him or guiding him or even talking to him out of sheer boredom. _Build, make, take, go_.

He’d built his empire, reaped his fortune, and now—well, he was waiting. He was waiting for the next fire to douse, the next spark of joy that felt like more than an act. He liked philanthropic work because his input didn’t really matter—if he was angry or sad or lonely, it didn’t affect the smiles on the children’s faces or the gratitude of the college kids hoping to change the world. His opinions didn’t matter; his money did.

Take away the money, and the man underneath was paralyzed. Brilliant, innovative, capable, yes, but paralyzed—he could no sooner fly to the moon without his billions than an ant could. His dreams floundered without his connections, his power, his money. Money was everything. Money was _nothing_.

It wasn’t warmth, it wasn’t companionship, it wasn’t even virtue—it was just a static object, enabling all the things that he supposedly loved. What couldn’t he buy? What couldn’t he _do_?

Be happy, he thought, sitting in his lab, surrounded by all his money and things and bitterness.

He had everything he could ever want—and nothing.

* * *

“I miss you.”

That was one way to start a phone call, Tony thought, waiting with baited breath for Steve’s response at—four a.m. Oops.

“ _Can we talk?_ ” Steve asked. He sounded very tired.

“Aren’t we?” Tony replied, adjusting his watch for the thousandth time. “Uh. I mean. Sure. Sure we can, buddy. When and where?”

There was a long pause, then: “ _Your place?_ ”

Tony said, “Rodger.”

“ _Hm?_ ”

“No, I mean—I’ll see you,” Tony said, and hung up.

* * *

It took Steve three hours. “I was in Connecticut,” he justified, stepping off his motorcycle.

“Pepper has family there,” Tony replied automatically. He didn’t hug Steve, but he felt—happy. Weirdly, stupidly happy, just to see him. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Steve replied, looking him over and frowning. Tony did not flinch from it, but he felt some of the easy warmth dissolve at that look, the implicit judgment. “You okay?”

“That’s how you wanna start this?”

“Not in a garage,” Steve admitted, looking around.

Steve sat at the bar; Tony futzed with a morning cocktail. “I’m not an alcoholic,” he announced. “I just—” He drank it without finishing.

“Howard was,” Steve said. “I don’t think I had four conversations with him, sober.”

“Please don’t talk about my dad,” Tony said, glad he remembered the please.

Steve said, “You don’t talk about him, much.” It was hard to read his tone.

“What do you want me to say? He was a good dad?” Tony turned away, well aware the bitterness in his voice was on full display. “Uh, sure. Yeah. He was a—”

“I never really saw him settlin’ down,” Steve admitted, sparing him.

Sparing him. How kind. “You look good,” Tony said without looking at him. “Better.”

“You look unwell, Tony,” Steve replied.

“Rude,” Tony murmured. 

A long, pointed pause settled between them. Then Steve pushed back his chair and said, “Let me help.”

Tony replied, “I know how to cook. I just choose not to.”

Steve sighed, then said, “Tony.”

Tony refused to face him. “You know, you coulda died. It’s not like you don’t _bleed_. Or was that all for show?”

A warm arm looped around his waist. Tony bristled, still facing the cabinetry, refusing to acknowledge it. “Was it for show?” he snapped, unable to help himself. “You, settling in, just so you could go out and _die_?” Steve was patient; Steve waited. Tony was impatient, agitated. “I don’t want to—I’d rather know up front, if that’s what this is. Just tell me that.”

“I hurt you,” Steve said.

A lump formed in Tony’s throat. Breaking free of Steve’s grip—and he could not possibly, unless Steve let him, and Steve let him—he put distance between them, pacing nearly to the windows. “I didn’t ask you to,” Tony parroted.

“I’m sorry, Tony.”

“Don’t apologize.” Holding his breath for a long moment, Tony let it out and said, “I can’t have the high ground if you apologize.”

Steve was quiet, letting him process. It was a beautiful day. Blue skies, sunny. The view from the Tower was spectacular. The view was more than he deserved, small and mean and ugly. _Look at me. I didn’t make it out alive._

“Tony?” Steve finally said.

He swallowed. Folded his arms across his chest. Paused. “I missed you, too.”

He dared to turn around, to really look at Steve. Hale and hearty as ever. It was the best and worst thing about him—he wasn’t invincible, but he’d act like it. “Probably be as stupid as you, if I were your age,” Tony admitted, on the edge of a haughty sniff, tipping his chin up, disdaining Steve.

“I’m twice your age,” Steve reminded.

Tony rolled his eyes. “Uh-huh,” he said, striding across the space, curling his arms around Steve tightly. “To be young,” he sighed, already feeling—better. Better. Steve was here. Steve was _alive_ , and not the half-dead alive he’d scrubbed hard from his brain with alcohol. Not an alcoholic—just a tool in his kit.

“Watch it, or I’ll start calling you _kid_ ,” Steve grumbled.

“I’ve seen _Lady and the Tramp_ , that’s a term of endearment,” Tony said.

There was a profound pause. “Introduce yourself to Disney movies, Rogers,” Tony sighed at last.

* * *

They watched _Lady and the Tramp_.

Steve did—Tony fell asleep less than ten minutes in, lounging against Steve’s chest and wondering idly if he had time to sleep.

Probably not, he concluded.

He could make time for Steve.

Maybe the universe was cold and dark and empty, but there were lights, and he’d be damned if he let his very own burn out.


End file.
